Introduction : with dreams begin responsibilities -- Decolonization, de-Stalinization, and development -- Ayni's children : the making of a Tajik professional elite after Stalin -- The object of development : Central Asian social scientists and the meaning of equality, prosperity, and progress -- The hiding hand : planning, improvization, and the building of the Nurek Dam -- City you can write about : internationalism, social welfare, and urban utopia in Nurek -- Shepherds into builders : making the new Tajik man and woman -- Tractors, power lines, and the welfare state : the contradictions of the cotton economy and technological innovation -- A torch lighting the way to progress and civilization : Soviet Central Asia as a model of development -- Rethinking development in the era of glasnost : environmentalism, nationalism, and protest -- Conclusion : a dream deferred

"Focusing on the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, this book places the Soviet development of Central Asia, and the Soviet hope for communism's bringing prosperity to a supposedly backward area, in global context"-- Provided by publisher